9/11 Timeline

Ziad Jarrah

Ali al-Jarrah. [Source: Lebanese Military/Public Domain]Starting in 1983, a Lebanese man named Ali al-Jarrah, cousin of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah, allegedly works as a spy for the Israeli government. Living in rural Lebanon as a school administrator, it is claimed he also is a valued spy, sending reports and taking clandestine photos of Palestinians and Hezbollah in Syria and south Lebanon, near the Israeli border. He is said to have been paid at least $300,000 over the years by Israel. Ali’s brother Yusuf al-Jarrah is said to have helped him spy, but few details of his case have been reported. Ali and Yusuf will be arrested by Hezbollah in July 2008 and then handed to the Lebanese military for trial by a military court. Ali will allegedly confess, but his wife will claim he has been tortured. He is also suspected of involvement in the assassination of Imad Mugniyah, a Hezbollah commander killed in Damascus in February 2008. Cases of such prolonged and involved spying have been very rare in Lebanon, and news of his arrest is said to have shocked the country. Ali and Ziad Jarrah were “20 years apart in age and do not appear to have known each other well.” [Jerusalem Post, 11/3/2008; London Times, 11/9/2008; Independent, 11/13/2008; New York Times, 2/19/2009] Curiously, Ziad Jarrah had another relative who has been accused of spying for three governments since the 1980s (see September 16, 2002).

Mohamed Atta’s father, Mohamed el-Amir. [Source: History Channel]Most of the future 9/11 hijackers are middle class and have relatively comfortable upbringings, even though, after 9/11, some people in Western countries will say one of the root causes of the attacks was poverty and assume that the hijackers must have been poor. The editor of Al Watan, a Saudi Arabian daily, will call the hijackers “middle class adventurers” rather than Islamist fundamentalist ideologues. [Boston Globe, 3/3/2002] Mohamed Atta grows up in Cairo, Egypt. His father is an attorney, and both Atta and his two sisters attend university. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 10-11] Marwan Alshehhi is from Ras al-Khaimah Emirate in the United Arab Emirates. His family is not particularly wealthy, but his father is a muezzin and one of his half-brothers a policeman. He attends university in Germany on a UAE army scholarship (see Spring 1996-December 23, 2000). [McDermott, 2005, pp. 55] Ziad Jarrah is from Beirut, Lebanon. His father is a mid-level bureaucrat and his mother, from a well-off family, is a teacher. The family drives a Mercedes and Jarrah attends private Christian schools before going to study in Germany. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 4/19/2002; McDermott, 2005, pp. 49-50] Hani Hanjour is from Taif, near Mecca in Saudi Arabia. His family has a car exporting business and a farm, which he manages for five years in the mid-1990s. [Washington Post, 10/15/2001] Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi are from Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Their father owns a shop and the family is wealthy. [Arab News, 9/20/2001; Wright, 2006, pp. 378] Abdulaziz Alomari is from southwestern Saudi Arabia. He is a university graduate (see Late 1990s). He apparently marries and has a child, a daughter, before 9/11. [Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2002; Saudi Information Agency, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 232] Mohand Alshehri is from Tanooma in Asir Province, Saudi Arabia. He attends university (see Late 1990s). [Saudi Information Agency, 9/11/2002] Hamza Alghamdi is from Baha Province, Saudi Arabia. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 231] He works as a stockboy in a housewares shop. [Boston Globe, 3/3/2002] Fayez Ahmed Banihammad is from the United Arab Emirates. He gives his home address as being in Khor Fakkan, a port and enclave of Sharjah Emirate on the country’s east coast. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] The 9/11 Commission will say he works as an immigration officer at one point. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 20 ] Maqed Mojed is from Annakhil, near Medina in western Saudi Arabia. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 232] He attends university (see Late 1990s). Ahmed Alhaznawi is from Hera, Baha Province. His father is an imam at the local mosque and he is reported to attend university (see Late 1990s). Ahmed Alnami is from Abha, Asir Province. His family is one of government officials and scientists, and his father works for the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. He attends university (see Late 1990s). [Daily Telegraph, 9/15/2002] Wail Alshehi and Waleed Alshehri are from Khamis Mushayt in Asir Province, southwestern Saudi Arabia. Their father is a businessman and builds a mosque as a gift to the town. They both go to college (see Late 1990s). The Alshehris are from a military family and have three older brothers who hold high rank at the nearby airbase. Their uncle, Major General Faez Alshehri, is the logistical director of Saudi Arabia’s armed forces. [Boston Globe, 3/3/2002] Dr. Ali al-Mosa, a Saudi academic, will later comment: “Most of them were from very rich, top-class Saudi families. The father of the Alshehri boys is one of the richest people in the area and the other families are not far behind him.” [Sydney Morning Herald, 10/5/2002]The social situation of the families of Satam al Suqami, Ahmed Alghamdi, Saeed Alghamdi, and Khaled Almihdhar is unknown. However, Almihdhar is from a distinguished family that traces its lineage back to the Prophet Muhammad. [Wright, 2006, pp. 379]

Ziad Jarrah gets down on the dancefloor. [Source: Jarrah family]A man named “Ziad Jarrah” rents an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. [Longman, 2002, pp. 90] The landlords later identify his photograph as being that of the 9/11 hijacker. A Brooklyn apartment lease bears Ziad Jarrah’s name. [Boston Globe, 9/25/2001] The Los Angeles Times reports: “Another man named Ihassan Jarrah lived with Ziad, drove a livery cab and paid the 800-dollar monthly rent. The men were quiet, well-mannered, said hello and good-bye. Ziad Jarrah carried a camera and told his landlords that he was a photographer. He would disappear for a few days on occasion, then reappear. Sometimes a woman who appeared to be a prostitute arrived with one of the men. ‘Me and my brother used to crack jokes that they were terrorists,’ said Jason Matos, a construction worker who lived in a basement there, and whose mother owned the house.” However, another Ziad Jarrah is still in his home country of Lebanon at this time. He is studying in a Catholic school in Beirut, and is in frequent contact with the rest of his family. His parents drive him home to be with the family nearly every weekend, and they are in frequent contact by telephone as well. [Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001] Not until April 1996 does this Ziad Jarrah leave Lebanon for the first time to study in Germany. [Boston Globe, 9/25/2001] His family later believes that the New York lease proves that there were two “Ziad Jarrahs.” [CNN, 9/18/2001] Evidence seems to indicate Jarrah is also in two places at the same time from November 2000 to January 2001 (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001).

The Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg. [Source: Knut Muller]Future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and other members of the Hamburg cell begin regularly attending the Al-Quds mosque. Atta becomes a well-known figure both there and at other mosques in the city. He grows a beard at this time, which some commentators interpret as a sign of greater religious devotion. The mosque is home to numerous radicals. For example, the imam, Mohammed Fazazi, advocates killing non-believers and encourages his followers to embrace martyrdom (see 1993-Late 2001 and Early 2001). Atta Teaches Classes at Al-Quds - After a time, Atta begins to teach classes at the mosque. He is stern with his students and criticizes them for wearing their hair in ponytails and gold chains around their necks, as well as for listening to music, which he says is a product of the devil. If a woman shows up, her father is informed she is not welcome. This is one of the reasons that, of the 80 students that start the classes, only a handful are left at the end. Other Hijackers and Cell Members Attend Al-Quds - One of Atta’s associates, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, also teaches classes at the mosque. 9/11 hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Ziad Jarrah start attending the mosque at different times and possibly first meet Atta there. Other mosque attendees who interact with the future hijackers at the mosque include Said Bahaji, and al-Qaeda operatives Mamoun Darkazanli and Mohammed Haydar Zammar. Is the Mosque Monitored? - According to author Terry McDermott, German investigators notice Bahaji meeting frequently with Darkazanli and Zammar at the mosque, so they presumably have a source inside it. [PBS Frontline, 1/2002; Burke, 2004, pp. 242; McDermott, 2005, pp. 1-5, 34-37, 72] The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung will later report that there probably is an informer working for the LfV, the Hamburg state intelligence agency, inside the mosque by 1999. Somehow, the LfV is very knowledgeable about Atta and some his associates, and their behavior inside the mosque (see (April 1, 1999)). [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003] Radical imam Fazazi will continue to preach at the mosque until late 2001 (see Mid-September-Late 2001).

Ziad Jarrah on a plane. [Source: NDRTV]Within a few months of arriving in Germany, hijacker Ziad Jarrah begins to associate with Abdulrahman al-Makhadi, a local hardline Muslim who raises money for the militant Palestinian group Hamas and is monitored by the German intelligence service BfV. The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung will say that al-Makhadi, also known as Abu Mohammed, is “known to the [German security service] BfV as a Hamas activist and ‘instigator,’” and that, “It is therefore difficult to imagine that the 26 year old Lebanese [Jarrah] was not also registered by the machinery of the intelligence services.” Jarrah later travels around Germany with al-Makhadi and meets other radicals. Al-Makhadi runs the local mosque and makes money by selling special Arab food he purchases in Hamburg there. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003; McDermott, 2005, pp. 51]

Ziad Jarrah. [Source: Reuters]When traveling with a radical associate known to be monitored by German intelligence, Abdulrahman al-Makhadi (see Late 1996 or After), Ziad Jarrah meets another suspicious Islamic radical. The man, a convert, is known in public accounts only as Marcel K and is the vice president of the Islamic center in North-Rhine Westphalia. In March 2001, the Bundeskriminalamt federal criminal service will begin investigating the center’s president with respect to membership in a terrorist organization. Marcel K is apparently a close confidant of Jarrah, because Jarrah always calls him before taking important decisions, for example when he leaves to train in Afghanistan and when he applies for admission to US flight schools. He will also call Marcel K during his pilot training, for the last time shortly before 9/11. [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003] Marcel K will be arrested in a Europe-wide sweep of Islamic militants in February 2003. [Deutsche Welle (Bonn), 2/6/2003; Tagesspeigel, 2/7/2003; New York Times News Service, 2/7/2003] It is not known what happens to him after this.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi. [Source: WDR.de]The 9/11 Commission will later call Mohamedou Ould Slahi “a significant al-Qaeda operative who, even [in late 1999], was well known to US and German intelligence, though neither government apparently knew he was operating in Germany.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 165]Thinks He Was Monitored - However, while in US custody after 9/11, Slahi will allege that a phone call he received in January 1999 from his cousin Mahfouz Walad Al-Walid, a top al-Qaeda leader living in Afghanistan, was monitored. Slahi will say, “I later learned that my cousin was using Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone that was intercepted.” Another mutual cousin was arrested that month and Slahi says, “I wasn’t captured, but I am sure I was followed by the German police [and/or] German intelligence.” He claims the imam at his mosque told him that German officials had come to ask questions about him and was told Slahi had ties with terrorists. [US Department of Defense, 4/20/2006, pp. 184-216] In 2000, the New York Times will report that German authorities became interested in Slahi “shortly after the bombings of American Embassies in East Africa in 1998. The German authorities learned that [he] might have ties to Islamic extremists in Europe.” [New York Times, 1/29/2000]Links to 9/11 Hijackers - After Hamburg al-Qaeda cell member Ramzi bin al-Shibh is captured in 2002, he will allegedly claim that Slahi was the one who originally recruited 9/11 hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Ziad Jarrah. [Agence France-Presse, 10/26/2002] After 9/11, another prisoner in US custody will say that Slahi and bin al-Shibh met in Frankfurt in 1999 through an acquaintance. This acquaintance will go further and will claim Slahi knew bin al-Shibh and Jarrah since at least 1998 and that Slahi later lived with them in Hamburg. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496] In October 1999, bin al-Shibh and Alshehhi call Slahi, and he invites them to come to where he lives in Duisburg, Germany. Bin al-Shibh, Alshehhi, and Ziad Jarrah soon go visit him there. Karim Mehdi, an apparent leader of the al-Qaeda Ruhr Valley cell who will later be sentenced to nine years in prison for a post-9/11 plot, is also at this meeting. Bin al-Shibh, Alsehhi, and Jarrah follow Slahi’s advice to go to Afghanistan instead of Chechnya, and he gives them instructions on how to meet up with al-Qaeda operatives there. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 165; Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), 8/3/2005; Associated Press, 10/26/2006] US investigators later believe Slahi worked closely on al-Qaeda matters with bin al-Shibh and instructed another militant to go to the US and to take part in the 9/11 plot. Additionally, he is believed to have a key role in Ahmed Ressam’s millennium plot (see December 15-31, 1999). [Los Angeles Times, 4/24/2006]No Action - German authorities are monitoring and wiretapping the phones at bin al-Shibh’s apartment throughout 1999 (see November 1, 1998-February 2001 and 2000), but they apparently do not connect Slahi to the Hamburg militants or do not act on that connection. The Germans will apparently miss another chance to learn of his ties to the Hamburg cell in April 2000, when Slahi is arrested for three weeks in Germany and then let go (see January-April 2000). [US Department of Defense, 4/20/2006, pp. 184-216] Note that the testimonies of detainees such as Slahi and bin al-Shibh are suspect due to widespread allegations that they were tortured into confessions (for instance, see September 27, 2001).

The CIA begins an operation to track or question suspected al-Qaeda operatives as they transit the airport in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE). When it is revealed in 2002 that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah was questioned in January 2000 as a part of this operation (see January 30-31, 2000), sources from the UAE and Europe describe the operation to CNN, and one of them draws a map of the airport, showing how the operation usually worked and how the people wanted for questioning were intercepted. UAE officials are often told in advance of who is coming in and who should be questioned. Jarrah may be stopped because he is on a US watch list (see January 30, 2000). [CNN, 8/1/2002] In 2011, Dubai airport will be considered one of the top five busiest in the world in terms of international passengers. [Airports Council International, 4/30/2011] In the summer of 1999, the CIA also asks immigration officials throughout the Middle East to stop and question anyone who may be returning from militant training camps in Afghanistan (see Summer 1999). 9/11 Hijackers Pass through the Airport - Almost all the 9/11 hijackers pass through Dubai at some point in the months before 9/11, some repeatedly (see December 8, 2000, April 11-June 28, 2001, and June 2001). One of them, Khalid Almihdhar, has his passport photocopied in Dubai by local authorities and the CIA (see January 2-5, 2000). Also, three of the hijackers, Satam al Suqami, Ahmed Alghamdi, and Hamza Alghamdi, are the subject a US customs investigation at the time they pass through Dubai (see September 2000 and Spring 2001), but it is unknown if there is any attempt to track them through Dubai.

According to German investigations, by at least this time, the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell including Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh has come up with the idea of attacking the US using airplanes. This theory is based on witness statements and the discovery by the German police of a flight simulator file on a computer used by the Hamburg cell that was downloaded between January and October 1999. [Washington Post, 9/11/2002; Burke, 2004, pp. 244] Both Atta and Alshehhi start taking lessons on ultralight aircraft this year (see April 1999, October 1999, and December 1999). Some suggest they first joined the 9/11 plot in early 1999 (see Early 1999). However, the 9/11 Commission claims that the 9/11 plot was hatched by al-Qaeda’s leadership and was communicated to the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell in Afghanistan in December 1999. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 165-169]

Friends of Ziad Jarrah taken on April 1, 1999. Third from left in back row is Abdelghani Mzoudi; fifth is Mounir El Motassadeq; seventh is Ramzi bin al-Shibh; Mohamed Atta is on middle row far right; Atta rests his hands on Mohamed Rajih. [Source: DDP / AFP]9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah has an unofficial wedding with his girlfriend, Aysel Senguen, on or shortly before April 1, 1999. They have a wedding ceremony at the radical Al-Quds mosque, but they do not register the wedding with the German government, so it is not legally binding. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 78] A photo apparently taken by Jarrah at the wedding will be found by German intelligence in Senguen’s home several days after 9/11 (see Shortly After September 11, 2001). The photo will be studied to determine who was a member of or close to the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell in early 1999. German investigators are able to identify 18 out of 22 men in the photo. Those in the photo include 9/11 hijacker Atta, Abdelghani Mzoudi, Mounir El Motassadeq, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Abderrasak Labied, and Mohammed Rajih. The LfV, the security service for the Hamburg region, will show such a surprising amount of knowledge of the people in the photo just days after 9/11 that it will later be suggested the LfV must have had an informant close to the Hamburg cell (see Shortly After September 11, 2001). [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Frankfurt), 2/2/2003]

Video footage of Said Bahaji’s wedding in October 1999. Clockwise from top left: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Said Bahaji, Mamoun Darkazanli, Ziad Jarrah, and Marwan Alshehhi. [Source: Agence France-Presse]Mamoun Darkazanli, along with most of the Hamburg al-Qaeda cell, attends the wedding of Said Bahaji. Bahaji is one of future 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta’s roommates and is believed to be a core member of the cell. The wedding takes place at the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg. A videotape of the wedding will be discovered by German investigators shortly after 9/11, and eventually more than 20 men will be identified from the video. Other attendees include: Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Mounir El Motassadeq, Mohammed Haydar Zammar, and Abdelghani Mzoudi. [New York Times, 9/10/2002; CBS News, 5/7/2003; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 345, 561; Vanity Fair, 11/2004] Zammar is Bahaji’s best man in the wedding. [New York Times, 6/20/2002]Speeches and Songs Promise Martyrdom - The video first shows Bahaji’s nuptial ceremony, followed by a series of radical militant speeches. Bin al-Shibh gives a particularly fiery speech. He says: “It is now as if we were in school, in Arabic lessons. At the end, we have a test. Some will pass this test, [others] will not.” He quotes a poem, saying that when Israel flies its flag over Jerusalem, “how can you bear these humiliations?… When the tyrants attack you, you will then be a wave of fire and blood.” The group then sings songs in Arabic celebrating violent holy war and martyrdom. One song includes the lyrics: “Our squads have been revolutionized.… Against the heresy, like a volcano, like hurricane and fire, we follow the voice of your call.… We will be aglow with readiness for action. We will crush the throne of the oppressor.” Another song celebrates martyrdom and promises many virgins in paradise for martyrs. [Vanity Fair, 11/2004]Video Shows the 9/11 Plot Is in Motion - The New York Times will later report, “The presence of all of these men at the wedding of Mr. Bahaji has led investigators to believe that the plan to attack the United States had essentially been formed by then.” [New York Times, 9/10/2002]

Future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah telephones Ayub Usama Saddiq Ali, an imam and Islamic Jihad leader wanted for murder in Egypt. No details about the call are known except that it lasts seven minutes. Ali was convicted of murder in Egypt in 1996, but he fled to Muenster, Germany, and received political asylum there in October 1999. Also in October 1999, Ali was on a published list of the Egyptian government’s most wanted terrorists (see October 2, 1999). He is said to be a close associate of al-Qaeda’s second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri. This phone call will be mentioned in a classified 2002 FBI report about the 9/11 hijackers, but it is unclear how or when the FBI learns about it. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1/11/2002; Vidino, 2006, pp. 230; Bild, 3/10/2011] In 2000, Ali will attend a terrorist summit in Italy that is also attended by some al-Qaeda operatives who seem to have foreknowledge of the 9/11 plot, and Mohammed Fazazi, the imam at the Al-Quds mosque that Jarrah regularly attends (see August 12, 2000 and Shortly After). Beginning in 2007, the German government will attempt to strip Ali of his asylum status because of his link to Islamic Jihad. He will lose that status in 2011, but he is not subsequently deported from Germany. [Bild, 3/10/2011] Jarrah will call Ali again in August 2001 (see August 4, 2001).

Mohamed Atta filmed in Afghanistan in January 2000. [Source: London Times]Hamburg cell members Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and possibly Said Bahaji travel to Afghanistan via Turkey and Karachi, Pakistan. They travel along a route often used by one of their associates, al-Qaeda recruiter Mohammed Haydar Zammar, to send potential operatives to Afghanistan for training. Turkish intelligence is aware of the route and informed German intelligence of it in 1996, leading to an investigation of Zammar (see 1996). However, it is unclear whether German or Turkish intelligence register the Hamburg cell members’ travel and how and whether they disseminate and act on this information. Jarrah is reportedly noticed by an intelligence service in the United Arab Emirates on his return journey from Afghanistan (see January 30, 2000). [New York Times, 9/10/2002; CBS News, 10/9/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 167; McDermott, 2005, pp. 89]

Ziad Jarrah in Afghanistan. [Source: Public Domain]9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Ziad Jarrah, Marwan Alshehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Nawaf Alhazmi meet to discuss the 9/11 operation at a building known as the “House of Alghamdi” in Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to a statement made by bin al-Shibh in an interview prior to his capture in 2002 (see September 8-11, 2002 and September 11, 2002). Bin al-Shibh will say, “We had a meeting attended by all four pilots including Nawaf Alhazmi, Atta’s right-hand man,” which the Guardian will interpret to mean Alhazmi, and not Hani Hanjour, flew Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon (see (December 2000-January 2001)). [Guardian, 9/9/2002] The 9/11 Commission, based on information obtained from Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) under interrogation, will place Hanjour in Afghanistan in spring 2000, indicating he will arrive some months after this meeting is held, and could not therefore attend it. Please note: information from detainee interrogations is thought to be unreliable due to the methods used to extract it (see June 16, 2004). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 226] In a substitution for testimony introduced as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, KSM will place Hanjour’s arrival at the training camps in Afghanistan in “September or October” of 2000. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, 7/31/2006, pp. 23 ]

Mohamed Atta (left) and Ziad Jarrah (right). [Source: London Times]9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah are filmed together recording their martyrdom wills in Afghanistan. The video footage will later be captured by US forces in late 2001 and leaked to the media in late 2006 (see September 30, 2006). The footage is significant because it is the only hard evidence that Atta and Jarrah were ever in the same place at the same time. Although the two men were frequently in close proximity to each other, for instance both attended Florida flight schools just a couple of miles apart at around the same time, their paths often just miss each other. However, they appear friendly to each other in this footage, frequently laughing and smiling. Atta reads his will and then Jarrah reads his, but their exact words are unknown since the sound was not recorded and lip-syncing experts apparently failed to understand what they said. [London Times, 10/1/2006]

Future 9/11 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah is briefly detained and questioned at the Dubai airport (see January 30-31, 2000), and some reports will suggest this is because he is already on a US watch list. It is not known when he may have been put on a watch list or why. The only information about this will come from conflicting accounts as to why Jarrah is stopped and questioned by immigration officials for several hours in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) on January 30. Did the US Tell the UAE to Stop Jarrah? - According to one version, UAE officials claim Jarrah is stopped based on a tip-off from the US. A UAE source will tell author Jane Corbin: “It was at the request of the Americans and it was specifically because of Jarrah’s links with Islamic extremists, his contacts with terrorist organizations. That was the extent of what we were told.” [Corbin, 2003] In 2002, CNN will also report that Jarrah is stopped because he is on a US watch list. It claims this is sourced not only from UAE sources, but from other governments in the Middle East and Europe. However, US officials will claim no such tip-off was ever given. [CNN, 8/1/2002]Passport and Religious Material Version - Other versions of the story will claim that Jarrah first raises suspicion because of an overlay of the Koran in his passport and because he is carrying religious tapes and books. This is what the 9/11 Commission will claim. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496] Other accounts, such as one in Vanity Fair in late 2004, will support this version. [Vanity Fair, 11/2004]UAE Has Existing Program to Track Militants for the CIA - There may be a middle version of sorts, that Jarrah may be stopped because the CIA wants people with a profile just like his to be stopped. According to CNN: “The questioning of Jarrah in Dubai fits the pattern of a CIA operation described to CNN by UAE and European sources. Those sources say that in 1999, the CIA began an operation to track suspected al-Qaeda operatives, as they transited there. One of those sources provided [a] drawing showing the airport layout and describes how people wanted for questioning were intercepted, most often at a transit desk. As was the case with Ziad Jarrah, CNN sources say UAE officials were, often, told in advance by American officials who was coming in and whom they wanted questioned.” [CNN, 8/1/2002] It will also be reported that in the summer of 1999, the CIA asked immigration officials all over the region to question anyone who may have been returning from training camps in Afghanistan, and Jarrah fits that profile (see Summer 1999). [Vanity Fair, 11/2004]

Ziad Jarrah, in an undated family photo taken in Lebanon. [Source: Getty Images]The UAE wants to arrest future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah, but US officials say they will track him instead, according to United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials. It is unknown if the US officials actually do so. On January 30, 2000, Jarrah is stopped and questioned as he is transiting through the airport in Dubai, UAE. Officials at the airport have agreed to help the CIA by monitoring or questioning suspicious militants passing through there (see 1999). Conflicting Accounts - There will be some controversy about what happens next. According to a January 2002 FBI memo, “UAE authorities stopped Jarrah, apparently, because he had the Koran superimposed on part of his passport and he was carrying other religious materials.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/24/2004] But according to UAE officials, Jarrah is stopped because he is on a US watch list (see January 30, 2000). Jarrah's Admissions - Regardless of why he is stopped, Jarrah is questioned and he all but admits he has just been to training camps in Afghanistan. A UAE official will later say, “When we questioned him, he said he spent two months and five days in Pakistan, some part of it in Afghanistan.” Furthermore, Jarrah says that he is going to the US to preach Islam and learn to fly airplanes. UAE Officials Want to Arrest Him, but US Says No - While Jarrah is being held at the airport, UAE officials contact US officials and ask what they should do with him. (Note that there is some controversy about this as well, but FBI and German documents indicate the US is contacted while Jarrah is still being held (see January 30, 2000).) A UAE official will later say: “What happened was we called the Americans. We said: ‘We have this guy. What should we do with him?‘… [T]heir answer was, ‘Let him go, we’ll track him.’ We were going to make him stay. They told us to let him go. We weren’t feeling very happy in letting him go.” [Chicago Tribune, 2/24/2004; McDermott, 2005, pp. 186-187, 294-295] According to another account, UAE officials have a discussion with officials at the US embassy in Dubai on what to do with Jarrah. After some discussion, they conclude they do not actually have any charge to arrest him with, so it is decided to let him go. [Chicago Tribune, 9/28/2005]UAE Officials Track Him to Hamburg; They Notify US Intelligence - After several hours of questioning, Jarrah is let go. He is allowed to board a flight for Amsterdam, Netherlands, but the flight does not leave until the next day, giving officials more time to prepare to track him if they want to. UAE officials are aware that after Jarrah arrives in Amsterdam, he changes planes for Hamburg, Germany. A UAE official will later say, “Where he went from there, we don’t know.” In fact, Jarrah lives in Hamburg and is part of the al-Qaeda cell there with fellow 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and others. According to the FBI memo, this information about Jarrah’s detention and questioning “was reported to the US government.” UAE officials are cautious about mentioning which part of the US government is informed, but the implication is that it is the CIA. [Associated Press, 12/14/2001; Chicago Tribune, 2/24/2004; McDermott, 2005, pp. 186-187] However, it is unknown if US intelligence does track Jarrah.

The CIA and United Arab Emirates (UAE) officials apparently fail to warn German intelligence about future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah. On January 30, 2000, Jarrah was questioned at Dubai airport in the UAE, and the CIA was involved in a decision to not arrest him (see January 30-31, 2000). But even though Jarrah’s flight from Dubai was tracked to Hamburg, Germany, apparently neither US nor UAE officials warn German intelligence about Jarrah. During Jarrah’s brief detention he confessed that he had just come from Pakistan and Afghanistan, and he had a large number of jihadist propaganda videos in his luggage, leading UAE officials to strongly suspect he had just been to a militant training camp in Afghanistan. He also revealed that he has plans to learn how to fly airplanes in the US. An unnamed top German intelligence official will later say: “If we had been given the information that Jarrah had been to Afghanistan and was planning to go to flight school, we might have asked the Americans whether they thought this was normal.… If they had asked us, ‘Who is this guy who is learning to fly?’ then perhaps there might have been a different outcome.” He will suggest German intelligence might have started monitoring Jarrah, and thus discovered the 9/11 plot. However, this official will complain: “But it was one-way traffic [with the CIA]. You gave information, and you got no response.” The CIA will later deny that it has any knowledge of Jarrah before 9/11. [Vanity Fair, 11/2004] Note that a UAE official claims that the CIA said it would secretly track Jarrah from Dubai airport (see January 30-31, 2000). If this is true, it could explain why neither the UAE nor CIA told Germany about Jarrah.

Florida Flight Training Center. [Source: FBI]Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, arrives in the US, flying from Munich to Atlanta, Georgia (or Newark, according to the 9/11 Commission). He enters on a tourist visa, issued in Berlin on May 25, 2000. He then flies to Venice, Florida, where he has already arranged to take full-time lessons at the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC). However, he never files an application to change his status from tourist to student. According to the 9/11 Commission, “This failure to maintain a legal immigration status provided a solid legal basis to deny him entry on each of the six subsequent occasions in which he reentered the United States. But because there was no student tracking system in place and because neither Jarrah nor the school complied with the law’s notification requirements, immigration inspectors could not know he was out of status.” Jarrah begins the private pilot program at FFTC on June 28, aiming to get a multi-engine license. His training will cost $16,000, which his parents wire to him. [Longman, 2002, pp. 90-91; US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224; 9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 11-12 ] FFTC is just down the road from Huffman Aviation, a flight school where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi soon begin training. [Associated Press, 9/9/2002]

Ziad Jarrah, with dark blue shirt and sunglasses, leaning against an airplane. He is surrounded by his fellow flight school students. [Source: History Channel]9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah attends the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, Florida, where he takes lessons in a Cessna 152. According to the FBI, he finishes his training there in December 2000. [Der Spiegel, 2002, pp. 12; US Congress, 9/26/2002] The school’s owner, Arne Kruithof, later says Jarrah is enrolled there until January 15, 2001. [Longman, 2002, pp. 91] The 9/11 Commission says he studies there until January 31, 2001. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 12 ] However, these latter two accounts conflict with other reports, according to which Jarrah is elsewhere at the same time (see Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). According to the 9/11 Commission, in early August, just weeks after commencing training, Jarrah gains a single-engine private pilot certificate. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] However, Arne Kruithof says that although Jarrah eventually receives his private pilot license and instrument rating, he does not do so while at FFTC. Kruithof later claims that Jarrah becomes an “average” pilot, saying, “We had to do more to get him ready than others. His flight skills seemed to be a little bit out there.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 91] At the same time as Jarrah is in Venice, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi attend Huffman Aviation, which is just up the road from FFTC. [Associated Press, 9/9/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] Yet no reports describe him ever meeting them while they are so near to each other. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who shared an apartment in Hamburg with Mohamed Atta (see November 1, 1998-February 2001), is supposed to join Jarrah at FFTC, wiring the school a $2,200 deposit in August 2000, but is repeatedly unable to obtain the necessary US visa (see May 17, 2000-May 2001). [US Congress, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 225]

Ziad Jarrah flying in Florida in 2000. [Source: Der Speigel]After entering the United States (see June 27-28, 2000), Ziad Jarrah lives in Venice, Florida, while taking flying lessons (see (June 28-December 2000)). According to the 9/11 Commission, he stays with some of his flight school’s instructors. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224] Other accounts describe him “spending most of the time sleeping on a sofa in the apartment the other students shared,” or simply as rooming “with three others.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 91; Corbin, 2003, pp. 155] For six weeks, Thorsten Biermann, a 23-year-old fellow flight student from Germany, rooms with Jarrah. According to Biermann, Jarrah keeps another apartment in Venice, but does not sleep in it. [Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 91-92] As well as paying for his flying lessons, Jarrah’s family in the Lebanon regularly wires him generous pocket money. He buys himself a car, which he lets other flight students borrow, and often cooks for his flatmates. During his time in the US, Jarrah maintains close contact with his girlfriend Aysel Senguen who is in Germany, phoning her hundreds of times and frequently e-mailing her. [Corbin, 2003, pp. 155; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 224-225]

Arne Kruithof. [Source: History Channel]According to some accounts, while he is taking lessons at Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) in Venice, alleged 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah appears an unlikely terrorist. Arne Kruithof, the school’s owner, later says Jarrah is “not just nice, but he had qualities you look for in a dear friend, someone you trust.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 92] He will tell the 9/11 Commission that Jarrah is “polite and easy to deal with,” and does not show “any hostility to the United States or to the West.” [9/11 Commission, 4/12/2004] Kruithof says Jarrah “would even offer to put out the trash cans at night, which no one else did,” and later remembers him “bringing me a six-pack of beer at home when I hurt my knee one time and sitting for hours on my sofa chatting.” Unlike other Middle Eastern students, Jarrah never seems uncomfortable or disapproving of the school’s receptionists, who wear skimpy skirts and tiny t-shirts. [Corbin, 2003, pp. 155] Furthermore, Jarrah drinks alcohol, having one or two beers, “but not three.” According to Kruithof, who later insists Jarrah’s demeanor was “not faked,” the school’s “entire staff does not believe that he had bad intentions,” and Jarrah “was a friend to all of us.” However, fellow flight student Thorsten Biermann, who rooms with Jarrah for six weeks, describes him as “introverted, a loner, he kept his distance.” Biermann will describe one occasion flying with Jarrah on a round-trip to Fort Lauderdale where, on the return, Jarrah insisted on both flying and manning the radio, and twice ignored Biermann’s pleas to refuel when the weather worsened. Biermann says: “I decided I did not want to fly with him anymore, and everyone I knew who flew with him felt the same way. It was as if he needed control.” Biermann will also say that Jarrah avoids pork and, contrary to what Kruithof claims, does not drink alcohol, even when they go to bars together. [New York Times, 9/23/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/23/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 91-92]

Global Objectives, a British banking compliance company, identifies fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers as high-risk people and establishes profiles for them. The hijackers are regarded as high-risk for loans because they are linked to Osama bin Laden, suspected terrorists, or associates of terrorists. The list of high-risk people maintained by Global Objectives is available to dozens of banks and the hijackers’ files contain their dates and places of birth, aliases, and associates. It is unclear which fifteen hijackers are considered high-risk. It is also unknown if any Western intelligence agencies access this database before 9/11. [Associated Press, 2/21/2002] According to the 9/11 Commission, US intelligence is only aware of three of the 9/11 hijackers, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi, and Khalid Almihdhar, before the attacks. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 181-2] However, media reports will suggest US intelligence agencies may have been aware of another six: Ziad Jarrah (see January 30, 2000); Marwan Alshehhi (see March 1999 and January-February 2000); Mohamed Atta (see January-May 2000 and January-February 2000); and Ahmed Alghamdi, Satam al Suqami, and Hamza Alghamdi (see September 2000 and Spring 2001).

9/11 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah and a couple of companions from flying school rent a plane for a trip from Miami to Nassau, Bahamas. There is no immigration departure record, although there is a record of his re-entry. Upon his return to the US, Jarrah undergoes immigration and customs checks, including an inspection of the plane by customs for the presence of drugs, contraband, and currency. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 16 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] He will later tell his girlfriend that the pilot gets drunk in Nassau and he has to fly back himself, although he does not have a license for the plane. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 197] Jarrah should not be re-admitted to the US because he is out of status—he breached immigration rules by taking a flight training course despite entering the US as a tourist—but this is apparently not noticed (see June 27-28, 2000).

Two images of Ziad Jarrah. The photo on the right is from the wreckage of Flight 93.
[Source: FBI]There is some evidence indicating hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah transits Dubai on January 30, 2001 after spending two months in Afghanistan (see January 30, 2001). [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/13/2001; CNN, 8/1/2002] However, the Florida Flight Training Center, where Jarrah has been studying for the previous six months, later says he is in school there until January 15, 2001. His family later reports he arrives in Lebanon to visit them on January 26, five days before he supposedly passes through Dubai. His father had just undergone open-heart surgery, and Jarrah visits him every day in the hospital until after January 30. Pointing out this incident, his uncle Jamal Jarrah later asks, “How could he be in two places at one time?” [Longman, 2002, pp. 101-02] Other accounts place Jarrah in Dubai one year earlier, not in 2001 (see January 30, 2000). If the 2001 version is correct, this is not the only example of Jarrah being in two places at the same time—there is also evidence he was in different places at once from March 1995-February 1996 (see March 1995-February 1996). Additionally, records seem to indicate that Jarrah flies out of the US on December 26, 2000, and then again on December 28, 2000 (see December 26-28, 2000), and then twice on the same day on July 25, 2001 (see July 25, 2001).

Records indicate future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flies from Miami, Florida, to Beirut on December 26, 2000, but then also flies from Tampa, Florida, to Dusseldorf, Germany, on December 28, 2000. The first trip has stops in Munich, Germany, and Istanbul, Turkey. The second flight has stops in Fort Myers, Florida, and Frankfurt, Germany. This is according to a 2002 FBI document about the 9/11 attacks. The document contains an analyst note pointing out that records show Jarrah left the US these two times, but doesn’t attempt to explain the discrepancy except to comment that one or the other flight may be right. Jarrah apparently returns to the US on January 5, 2001, after visiting family in Lebanon. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 4/19/2002] Additionally, around this time, there are claims that Jarrah is both training in Afghanistan and visiting family in Lebanon. One uncle of his will later ask, “How could he be in two places at one time?” (See Late November 2000-January 30, 2001). Jarrah also seems to leave the US twice in a short time period on one other occasion (see July 25, 2001).

9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah arrives in the US for the fifth time and is admitted at Newark as a business visitor, receiving a six-month stay. This is unusual, as inspectors usually give business visitors one to three months, depending on the port of entry, and six months only when the visitor can document the purpose of the stay, which Jarrah apparently does not do. Jarrah actually should not be admitted at all because he is out of status—he breached immigration rules by taking a flight training course despite entering the US as a tourist—but this is apparently not noticed (see June 27-28, 2000). [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 20 ]

After returning to the US for the fifth time, 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flies immediately to Jacksonville, Florida, where he stays at the Ramada Inn for a week. He had previously visited Jacksonville (see January 22-26, 2001), as had Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi (see (October 2000)). While in Jacksonville, he frequents Wacko’s strip club. A worker there will later say that the FBI comes to the club after 9/11 to ask questions and show pictures “of the 9/11 terrorists,” and a dancer recognizes Jarrah from a photo line-up. The information about the hotel stay will be discovered by First Coast News in summer 2004 and they will offer to share it with the FBI. The local office will originally agree to meet the reporters, but then cancel at the last minute, saying that the cancellation had been ordered by their superiors at the Justice Department due to a possible impact on the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. First Coast News will comment, “Questions still remain as to what Jarrah was doing in Jacksonville.” [First Coast News, 8/24/2004; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 5, 22 ] Jarrah’s whereabouts after he leaves Jacksonville are unknown for a week and a half, but he shows up in Decatur, Georgia, on March 15. There he stays at a hotel previously used by Atta and Alshehhi for two weeks using the name variant Ziad Samir. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 128 ]

Ziad Jarrah standing next to a Cessna in Florida. [Source: National Geographic]9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah is said to obtain a commercial pilot’s license around this time by flight school owner Arne Kruithof, although neither the FBI nor any other official body will confirm this. Jarrah obtained a private pilot’s license from Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC) (see (June 28-December 2000)) in 2000 and then spent a few hours on Boeing simulators later in 2000 (see December 15, 2000-January 8, 2001). FFTC owner Kruithof will later say that he was told Jarrah obtained a commercial license: “He was supposed to come back and finish his commercial pilot license, but he did not. Later, I found out that he did it somewhere else.” However, there is no mention of where he may have obtained such additional training. [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 133]

According to an associate of the 9/11 hijackers, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and flight school owner Rudi Dekkers, the hijackers have more training on large jets than the FBI will disclose. The FBI will say that the four hijacker pilots never fly real large jets before 9/11 and have a total of approximately 17 sessions on large aircraft simulators, mostly on older models: Both Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi each take two sessions lasting 90 minutes on a Boeing 727 simulator and one session on a simulator for a Boeing 767, the type of aircraft they fly on 9/11 (see December 29-31, 2000); Ziad Jarrah, who flies a Boeing 757 on 9/11, has five sessions on 727s and 737s (see December 15, 2000-January 8, 2001); Hani Hanjour, who flies a Boeing 757 on 9/11, practices for a total of 21 hours on a Boeing 737-200 simulator (see February 8-March 12, 2001). When he learns what the FBI believes is the extent of the hijackers’ training, bin al-Shibh will complain in a fax sent to a reporter after 9/11: “How do aviation experts evaluate the skill with which the aircraft were flown, especially the Pentagon attack—accurate and professional as it was? Is it credible that the executers had never before flown a Boeing? Is it credible they only had some lessons on small twin-engine aircrafts and some lessons on simulators?” Referring to the period in early 2001 after the pilots spend a few hours practicing on simulators, bin al-Shibh will say, “What they needed was more flying hours, more training on simulators of large commercial planes such as Boeing 747s and Boeing 767s, as well as studying security precautions in all airports.” However, apparently bin al-Shibh does not mention exactly when or where such additional training took place, if in fact it did. [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 24-6, 38, 134] Interviewed two days after 9/11, Dekkers, at whose flight school Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi initially trained (see July 6-December 19, 2000), will comment, “After the training they had here they went to another flight school in Pompano Beach and they had jet training there, simulator or big planes, but there is where they conducted the training to do what they had to do.” Dekkers will say that he has heard this “from several directions.” However, the Pompano Beach school is not named. [Dekkers, 9/13/2001]

Ziad Jarrah amd Aisel Senguen holidaying in Paris in the fall of 2000. [Source: McDermott]9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah flies from Atlanta to Dusseldorf, Germany, via Amsterdam, Netherlands. He then returns to Lebanon to see his father, who is ill. On his way back to the US, he stops in Bochum, Germany, to see his girlfriend and tells her he wants to have children soon. He is re-admitted to the US as a business visitor for three and a half months. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 21 ; McDermott, 2005, pp. 213]

The most famous image of Mohamed Atta came from his Florida driver’s license.
[Source: 9/11 Commission]At least six 9/11 hijackers get more than one Florida driver’s license. They get the second license simply by filling out change of address forms: Waleed Alshehri—first license May 4, duplicate May 5; Marwan Alshehhi—first license, April 12, duplicate in June; Ziad Jarrah—first license May 2, duplicate July 10; Ahmed Alhaznawi—first license July 10, duplicate September 7 (see September 7, 2001); Hamza Alghamdi—first license June 27, two duplicates, the second in August; and “A sixth man” with a Florida duplicate is not named. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001] Additionally, some hijackers obtained licenses from multiple states. For instance, Nawaf Alhazmi had licenses from California, New York, and Florida at the same time, apparently all in the same name. [Newsday, 9/21/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 9/28/2001; Daily Oklahoman, 1/20/2002]

Waleed Alshehri. [Source: FBI]The 9/11 hijackers open nine new SunTrust bank accounts in Florida. One is opened by hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah, the others by the newly arrived hijackers: Satam Al Suqami and Waleed Alshehri open a joint account on May 1 with a $9,000 deposit; [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 136 ] Ziad Jarrah opens an account on May 15; Ahmed Alnami, Hamza Alghamdi, and Mohand Alshehri open accounts on June 1; Wail Alshehri opens an account on June 18; Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alhaznawi open accounts on July 12; Fayez Ahmed Banihammad opens an account on July 18. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 3, 19 ] Many of the hijackers also obtain Florida driver’s licenses and ID cards at the same time (see April 12-September 7, 2001).

Ziad Jarrah’s computer record at the US1 Fitness gym. [Source: Patrick Durand/ Corbis]Some 9/11 hijackers work out at various gyms, presumably getting in shape for the hijacking. Ziad Jarrah appears to train intensively from May to August, and Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi also take exercising very seriously. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; New York Times, 9/23/2001] However, these three are presumably pilots who would need the training the least. For instance, Jarrah’s trainer says, “If he wasn’t one of the pilots, he would have done quite well in thwarting the passengers from attacking.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001] From September 2-6, Flight 77 hijackers Hani Hanjour, Majed Moqed, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Salem Alhazmi show up several times at a Gold’s Gym in Greenbelt, Maryland, signing the register with their real names and paying in cash. According to a Gold’s regional manager, they “seemed not to really know what they were doing” when using the weight machines. [Washington Post, 9/19/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; Associated Press, 9/21/2001; Newsday, 9/23/2001] Three others—Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami—
“simply clustered around a small circuit of machines, never asking for help and, according to a trainer, never pushing any weights. ‘You know, I don’t actually remember them ever doing anything… They would just stand around and watch people.’” [New York Times, 9/23/2001] Those three also had a one month membership in Florida—whether they ever actually worked out there is unknown. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001]

An apartment in Hollywood, Florida, where Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi lived for a month from May 13. [Source: Patrick Durand / Corbis]Several large deposits are made on the 9/11 hijacker pilots’ accounts. The joint SunTrust account of Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi receives $8,600 on May 11, $3,400 on May 22, and $8,000 on June 1, when $3,000 is also deposited in Ziad Jarrah’s SunTrust account. The 9/11 Commission will not identify the source of these funds, but will speculate that they may be from physically imported cash or traveler’s checks the investigation did not identify, or funds that were previously withdrawn, but not spent. [9/11 Commission, 8/21/2004, pp. 136-7 ] Alternatively, they may be related to the way in which Mohamed Atta distributes cash transferred to his US bank accounts (see Mid-July-Mid-August 2001).

Several of the 9/11 hijackers make trips to Las Vegas and the west coast over the summer: May 24-27: Marwan Alshehhi flies to Vegas (see May 24-27, 2001); June 7-10: Ziad Jarrah takes a trip to Vegas (see June 7-10, 2001); June 28-July 1: Mohamed Atta takes his first trip to Vegas, flying from Fort Lauderdale to Boston and then, the next day, to Las Vegas via San Francisco with United Airlines. He stays there three nights, then returns to Boston via Denver, and flies to New York the next day; July 31-August 1: Waleed Alshehri flies from Fort Lauderdale to Boston and then takes American Airlines flight 195 to San Francisco the next day. After spending a night at the La Quinta Inn, he returns to Miami via Las Vegas; [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 1-2, 16, 18 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 55-7 ] August 1: Actor James Woods sees four people he will later suspect are hijackers, including individuals he believes to be Khalid Almihdhar and Hamza Alghamdi, on a transcontinental flight (see August 1, 2001). Abdulaziz Alomari is reported to try to get into the cockpit on a different flight from Vegas on the same day (see August 1, 2001); August 13-14: Atta, Hani Hanjour, and Nawaf Alhazmi all fly to Vegas, possibly meeting some other hijackers there (see August 13-14, 2001). Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar also made frequent car trips to Las Vegas from San Diego, where they lived in 2000. [Los Angeles Times, 9/1/2002; McDermott, 2005, pp. 192] The reason for these trips is never definitively determined, although there will be speculation the hijackers are casing aircraft similar to those they will hijack on 9/11. The 9/11 Commission will comment, “Beyond Las Vegas’s reputation for welcoming tourists, we have seen no credible evidence explaining why… the operatives flew to or met in Law Vegas.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 242, 248] After 9/11, it will be reported that the hijackers may use these cross-country flights to take pictures of airline cockpits and check out security at boarding gates. During the flights, the hijackers apparently take notes, watch the crews, and even videotape them. There are some reports that two, or perhaps more, of the hijackers sit in “jumpseats” in the pilot’s cabin, a courtesy extended by airlines to other pilots, during the surveillance flights (see Summer 2001) and on the day of 9/11 itself (see November 23, 2001). [Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; Associated Press, 5/29/2002] There are reports that the hijackers drink alcohol, gamble, and frequent strip clubs while they are in Las Vegas. For example, according to a dancer named “Samantha,” Marwan Alshehhi stares up at her blankly while she “undulate[s] her hips inches from his face” and only gives her $20, although he is a “light drinker.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 10/4/2001; Newsweek, 10/15/2001]

During much of the summer, four of the alleged 9/11 hijackers rent scooters from AAA Car Rental in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Like many students do, they pass time riding up and down the city’s beaches. One of the owners of AAA Car Rental later remarks, “For guys that hated America, they sure looked like they were having a great time here. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world.” [Wall Street Journal, 10/16/2001] Though the identities of the four are unstated, many of the hijackers are reportedly in the Fort Lauderdale area around this time, including Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and nine of the so-called “muscle hijackers” (see April 23-June 29, 2001). [US Congress, 9/26/2002]

9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah spends three days in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On June 2, Jarrah flies from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Philadelphia International Airport. He has a round trip ticket, with his return flight booked for June 9. Upon arriving in Philadelphia, he rents a Chevrolet Cavalier from Alamo Rent a Car at the airport. Jarrah stays for the three days at the Best Western Hotel in northeast Philadelphia, registering there in his own name. On June 3 and 4, he pays for three sessions of computer use—lasting 45 minutes, 51 minutes, and 48 minutes—at the Kinko’s store in Philadelphia, and spends time on the Internet. Also on those two days, Jarrah has sessions training at the Hortman Aviation flight school (see June 3-4, 2001). Jarrah’s whereabouts on June 6 are unknown; he will not use the “back end” of his round trip ticket to fly back to Fort Lauderdale that day. On June 7, Jarrah will drive the rented Chevrolet to Baltimore-Washington International Airport and leave it at the Alamo car rental location there, having driven 455 miles in it. He will then fly to Las Vegas (see June 7-10, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3/20/2002, pp. 48, 50-51; 9/11 Commission, 1/2004 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 54-55 ]

Hortman Aviation. [Source: Hortman Aviation Services Inc.]9/11 hijacker pilot Ziad Jarrah has two sessions of training at a flight school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but is denied a request to rent a plane from there due to his inadequate piloting skills. Jarrah arrived in Philadelphia on June 2 (see June 2-5, 2001). The following day, he arrives at Hortman Aviation, a flight school at the Northeast Philadelphia Airport, and asks to rent a Piper Cherokee aircraft from there. [9/11 Commission, 4/27/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 242; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 54 ] He indicates that he has 225 hours of flying time, and says he has a private pilot’s license but is working on his commercial license. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3/20/2002, pp. 50-51]Jarrah Wants to Fly the Hudson Corridor - Jarrah tells Herbert Hortman, the owner and operator of Hortman Aviation, that he is “in town for a couple of days” and that he is interested in flying along the Hudson Corridor. [9/11 Commission, 4/27/2004 ] The Hudson Corridor is a “hallway” along the Hudson River where a pilot can fly at low altitude without having to fly on radar. It passes New York landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center, but heavy air traffic makes it a dangerous route for an inexperienced pilot to fly. Hortman will later reflect that, in hindsight, he finds it “highly unusual” for someone from Florida, like Jarrah, to know of the Hudson Corridor. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3/20/2002, pp. 51; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 242]Instructor Finds Jarrah Has Poor Landing Skills - Hortman assigns David Powell, an instructor at the flight school, to take Jarrah on a “check out” flight, to determine his piloting skills. Accompanied by Powell, Jarrah flies across the Delaware River to New Jersey and lands at the Flying W Airport in Lumberton. During the flight, Jarrah tells Powell that he is from Germany and that he learned to fly in Florida. Although Jarrah is able to complete the flight, he is deemed to be unsatisfactory in his ability to land the aircraft: He lands the Piper Cherokee, which has fixed, un-retractable landing gear, on the nose gear, rather than using the proper technique of landing it on its main gear. Powell tells him he will have to return the following day for a second check out flight. Jarrah Has Second 'Check Out' Flight, but Instructor Still Unhappy - Jarrah returns to the flight school on June 4 and takes the second check out flight. Although he handles the plane more effectively this time, Powell notes that on this occasion there is minimal wind, and so Jarrah’s landings are unaffected by the wind. Powell also finds that Jarrah has difficulty using the plane’s radio and contacting the control tower at the Northeast Philadelphia Airport. He does not recommend that Jarrah be allowed to rent an aircraft from Hortman Aviation. Herbert Hortman tells Jarrah he will need to return to the flight school for another day of instruction before he will be allowed to rent and fly an aircraft from there. Jarrah schedules a third lesson and check out flight, but never returns to Hortman Aviation. Although Jarrah has an FAA pilot’s license that was issued in Florida, Hortman is surprised he has qualified for this, considering his limited flying skills, and speculates that the license was issued by a less than reputable flying school. [9/11 Commission, 4/12/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 4/27/2004 ]Jarrah Accompanied by Unidentified Older Man - On at least one occasion when Jarrah attends Hortman Aviation, he is accompanied by another man, who he introduces as his “uncle.” The man is also Middle Eastern, but has a darker complexion than Jarrah. Hortman will later describe him as being of average height and in his mid to late 40s. He is “appropriately dressed” and does not appear to be a recent immigrant to the United States. Hortman is unable to tell whether the man understands English, as Jarrah does all the talking. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3/20/2002, pp. 51; 9/11 Commission, 4/27/2004 ] Like Jarrah, Hani Hanjour, the alleged hijacker pilot of Flight 77 on 9/11, requests flights along the Hudson Corridor around this time, at a flight school in New Jersey (see (April-July 2001)). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 242]

An unknown intelligence agency intercepts a telephone call between alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) and his associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh. [9/11 Commission, 2004; 9/11 Commission, 3/18/2004] In the call, KSM and bin al-Shibh discuss the state of the 9/11 plot, in particular the fact that Ziad Jarrah, one of the proposed pilots, may drop out. They speak in a code, substituting unexceptional words for what they really mean. [9/11 Commission, 3/18/2004] KSM instructs bin al-Shibh to send the “skirts,” meaning money forwarded to bin al-Shibh by an associate of KSM, to “Sally,” meaning Moussaoui. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 246] The reason for this is that “Teresa,” meaning Jarrah, is “late,” i.e. he is wavering and may drop out of the plot, due to possible conflicts with lead hijacker Mohamed Atta about Jarrah’s isolation from the conspiracy. It therefore appears that KSM is thinking of Moussaoui as a replacement for Jarrah. According to a 9/11 Commission memo, KSM says something like, “if there is a divorce, it will cost a lot of money.” Bin al-Shibh then tries to reassure him, saying it will be okay. The conversation also mentions “Danish leather,” an apparent reference to failed “20th hijacker” Mohamed al-Khatani (see August 4, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 3/18/2004] The agency which intercepts this call is never identified to the public, although the NSA is reportedly intercepting such calls to and from KSM at this time (see Summer 2001). The 9/11 Commission will mention the call in a staff statement and its final report, but will not mention that it was intercepted, merely citing detainee interrogations as the source of information about it. [9/11 Commission, 6/16/2004, pp. 16-17; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 246, 530]

Future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah seems to leave the US twice on the same day. According to a 2002 FBI document about the 9/11 attacks, Jarrah takes a KLM flight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Amsterdam, Netherlands. But the same document says he also takes a Continental flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Dusseldorf, Germany. The FBI document contains a note from an analyst that merely comments this is “conflicting information.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 4/19/2002] Jarrah seems to leave the US twice in a short time period on one other occasion (see December 26-28, 2000).

Ayub Usama Saddiq Ali. [Source: Marco Stepniak / Bild]Future 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah telephones Ayub Usama Saddiq Ali, an imam and an Islamic Jihad leader wanted for murder in Egypt. No details about the call are known except that it lasts 13 minutes. Jarrah also called Ali in November 1999 (see November 7, 1999). Ali was convicted of murder in Egypt in 1996, but he fled to Muenster, Germany, and received political asylum there in October 1999. Also in October 1999, Ali was on a published list of the Egyptian government’s most wanted terrorists (see October 2, 1999), and he is said to be a close associate of al-Qaeda second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri. Jarrah’s two phone calls to Ali will be mentioned in a classified 2002 FBI report about the 9/11 hijackers, but it is unclear how or when the FBI learns about the calls. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1/11/2002; Vidino, 2006, pp. 230; Bild, 3/10/2011]Ali Attended a Monitored Terror Summit in Italy - On August 12, 2000, Ali attended a terrorist summit in Bologna, Italy, that lasted for several days and was monitored by the Italian government (see August 12, 2000 and Shortly After). Also attending the summit were Mahmoud Es Sayed, another close associate of al-Zawahiri (see Before Spring 2000) and Yemeni government official Abdulsalam Ali Abdulrahman. On their way to the summit, Es Sayed and Abdulrahman were overheard discussing an attack using aircraft, indicating they have some level of foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks (see August 12, 2000). Also attending the summit was Mohammed Fazazi, the imam of the Al-Quds mosque in Hamburg, Germany, that Jarrah and other members of the al-Qaeda Hamburg cell regularly attend (see Early 1996 and (April 1, 1999)). Fazazi will be convicted of a role in a bombing in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2003 (see May 16, 2003). The summit was organized by the Islamic Cultural Institute, which is the epicenter of an al-Qaeda cell in Milan, Italy, that was heavily monitored by the Italian government at the time (see 2000). [Vidino, 2006, pp. 230] It is not known if the Italian government warned the German government of Ali’s presence at this summit, or if Ali was monitored by anyone in Germany after it. Asylum Status Later Stripped - Beginning in 2007, the German government will attempt to strip Ali of his asylum status because of his link to Islamic Jihad. He will lose that status in 2011, but is not subsequently deported from Germany. [Deutsche Presse-Agentur (Hamburg), 3/9/2011; Bild, 3/10/2011]

Mohamed Atta stayed at the Las Vegas Econolodge. [Source: Chris Farina/Corbis]The lead hijackers meet in Las Vegas for a summit a few weeks before 9/11. Investigators will believe that this is the “most crucial planning in the United States,” but will not understand why the hijackers choose Vegas, since they are all living on the East Coast at this time (see March 2001-September 1, 2001 and August 6-September 9, 2001). One senior official will speculate, “Perhaps they figured it would be easy to blend in.” [New York Times, 11/4/2001] At least three of the plot leaders are in Las Vegas at this time. Hani Hanjour and Nawaf Alhazmi fly from Dulles Airport to Los Angeles on an American Airlines Boeing 757, the same sort of plane they hijack on 9/11, and then continue to Las Vegas. Mohamed Atta also flies to Las Vegas from Washington National Airport. This is his second trip to Vegas, which was also previously visited by some of the other hijackers (see May 24-August 14, 2001). A few weeks earlier, Atta had traveled to Spain, possibly with some of the other hijackers, to finalize the plans for the attack with their associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh (see July 8-19, 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 1, 17, 21 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006, pp. 57-8 ] Alhazmi will later be recalled by a hotel employee, who will say she ran into him at the Days Inn. According to her later account, he is “cold and abrupt,” in Vegas on “important business,” and will soon be traveling to Los Angeles. He asks for a list of Days Inns in Los Angeles, but does not want a reservation to be made. He also claims to be from Florida, although he is only thought to have spent a week there (see June 19-25, 2001). [Las Vegas Review-Journal, 10/26/2001] A close associate of the hijackers, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, will later say in a 2002 interview that Ziad Jarrah, Marwan Alshehhi, and Khalid Almihdhar are also present in Vegas at this time. [Fouda and Fielding, 2003, pp. 137] Newsweek calls Vegas an “odd location” and comments: “They stayed in cheap hotels on a dreary stretch of the Strip frequented by dope dealers and $10 street hookers. Perhaps they wished to be fortified for their mission by visiting a shrine to American decadence. Or maybe they just wanted a city that was easy to reach by air from their various cells in Florida, New Jersey and San Diego.” [Newsweek, 10/15/2001]

A letter that Zacarias Moussaoui had in his possession when he was arrested. It is signed by Yazid Sufaat, whose apartment was used for a 9/11 planning meeting in January 2000 that was monitored by the authorities. [Source: US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division] (click image to enlarge)After Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested, the FBI wishes to search his possessions (see August 16, 2001 and August 23-27, 2001). According to a presentation made by FBI agent Aaron Zebley at Moussaoui’s trial, the belongings are sufficient to potentially connect Moussaoui to eleven of the 9/11 hijackers: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad Jarrah, Hani Hanjour, Khalid Almihdhar, Nawaf Alhazmi, Fayez Banihammad, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Hamza Alghamdi, Satam Al Suqami, and Waleed Alshehri. The connections would be made, for example, through Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who spoke with Moussaoui on the telephone and wired him money (see July 29, 2001-August 3, 2001), and who was linked to three of the hijacker pilots from their time in Germany together (see November 1, 1998-February 2001). Bin al-Shibh also received money from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, who was connected to hijacker Fayez Ahmed Banihammad (see June 25, 2001). [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Moussaoui’s notebook contained two recognizable control numbers for the Western Union wire transfers from bin al-Shibh and, according to McClatchy newspapers, a check on these numbers “would probably have uncovered other wires in the preceding days” to bin al-Shibh from al-Hawsawi. [McClatchy Newspapers, 9/11/2007] The discovery of the eleven hijackers could potentially have led to the discovery of some or all of the remaining eight plot members, as they were brothers (Wail and Waleed Alshehri, Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi), opened bank accounts together (see May 1-July 18, 2001 and June 27-August 23, 2001), lived together (see March 2001-September 1, 2001), obtained identity documents together (see April 12-September 7, 2001 and August 1-2, 2001), arrived in the US together (see April 23-June 29, 2001), and booked tickets on the same four flights on 9/11 (see August 25-September 5, 2001).

The Pin-Del Motel. [Source: Michael Springer / Zuma Press]On August 27, future Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah checks into the Pin-Del, a budget motel in Laurel, Maryland. Giving a Florida address and driver’s license number, he pays for three nights with a Visa card, but leaves the following evening. [Associated Press, 9/19/2001; Washington Post, 9/19/2001] Days later, another hijacker, Nawaf Alhazmi, spends the night of September 1 at the same motel. He uses a New York driver’s license as identification, which gives his address as a Manhattan hotel. But the records of this hotel later will show he never stays there, and his driver’s license will also be found to be a fake. On September 2, Alhazmi joins the other Flight 77 hijackers at another motel, about a mile from the Pin-Del (See (August 23-September 10, 2001)). Jarrah is apparently never seen with any of the other hijackers while in the US. [Associated Press, 9/19/2001; Newsday, 9/21/2001]

According to Paul Dragomir, the manager of the Longshore Motel in Hollywood, Florida, two individuals who may be Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah rent a room in his motel. They sign in using apparent aliases, claiming to be computer engineers from Iran, and say they are down from Canada to find jobs. However, they leave the motel after a few hours because of a dispute over Internet access, which the motel cannot provide on a 24-hour basis. The Washington Post will write: “The need to be online at any moment suggests they were looking for Web pages or messages that would signal phases of the operation, experts say. Dragomir said he refunded their $175 in cash and they left. ‘They got very angry. One of the guys said, You don’t understand. We are here on a mission.’” [Washington Post, 10/5/2001] While the Post’s account will say that the motel manager recognizes Atta and Jarrah, other press accounts differ. According to the Chicago Tribune, Dragomir “said he was uncertain whether the pair had any connection to the Sept. 11 events, except for general physical descriptions.” [Chicago Tribune, 9/18/2001] And according to Wired Magazine, Dragomir “suggested that they were closely linked to the 19 hijackers, but that they were not among those men.” [Wired, 9/20/2001]

Ziad Jarrah. [Source: CNN]9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah is stopped in Maryland for speeding, ticketed, and released. No red flags show up when his name is run through the computer by the state police, even though he already had been questioned in January 2001 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the request of the CIA for “suspected involvement in terrorist activities” (see January 30, 2001) Baltimore’s mayor has criticized the CIA for not informing them that Jarrah was on the CIA’s watch list. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/13/2001; Associated Press, 12/14/2001] Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL) will later make reference to Jarrah’s detention in the UAE and the fact that an arrest warrant had been put out for Mohamed Atta (see June 4, 2001), and comment, “Had local law enforcement been able to run the names of Jarrah and Atta against a watch list, it is likely that they would have been arrested and detained, and at least one team of hijackers would no longer have had a pilot.” [Graham and Nussbaum, 2004, pp. 37] Three other hijackers are also stopped for speeding while they are in the US (see April 26, 2001).

Several of the hijackers have tickets to continue from the destinations of their 9/11 flights. However, they do not take the flights, as all air traffic has been grounded in the US (see (9:26 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and they are presumed to have died in the 9/11 attacks. Flight 77 hijackers Nawaf and Salem Alhazmi, and Flight 175 hijackers Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Mohand Alshehri, and Hamza Alghamdi are to fly from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Flight 93 hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi is to continue from San Francisco to San Diego, whereas Ziad Jarrah is to continue to Las Vegas. Alghamdi also has tickets for flights later in September (see September 20-29, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001, pp. 233, 238, 242 246, 288 ]

One page of a torn up 757 cockpit poster used by the hijackers. It was found in a trash compactor at the Days Inn, near the Newark Airport. [Source: FBI]Investigators find a remarkable number of possessions left behind by the hijackers: Two of Mohamed Atta’s bags are found on 9/11. They contain a handheld electronic flight computer, a simulator procedures manual for Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft, two videotapes relating to “air tours” of the Boeing 757 and 747 aircraft, a slide-rule flight calculator, a copy of the Koran, Atta’s passport, his will, his international driver’s license, a religious cassette tape, airline uniforms, a letter of recommendation, “education related documentation” and a note (see September 28, 2001) to other hijackers on how to mentally prepare for the hijacking. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/15/2001; Boston Globe, 9/18/2001; Independent, 9/29/2001; Associated Press, 10/5/2001] Author Terry McDermott will later comment, “Atta’s bag contained nearly every important document in his life… If you wanted to leave a roadmap for investigators to follow, the suitcase was a pretty good place to start.” [McDermott, 2005, pp. 306] Marwan Alshehhi’s rental car is discovered at Boston’s Logan Airport containing an Arabic language flight manual, a pass giving access to restricted areas at the airport, documents containing a name on the passenger list of one of the flights, and the names of other suspects. The name of the flight school where Atta and Alshehhi studied, Huffman Aviation, is also found in the car. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001] A car registered to Nawaf Alhazmi is found at Washington’s Dulles Airport on September 12. This is the same car he bought in San Diego in early 2000 (see March 25, 2000). Inside is a copy of Atta’s letter to the other hijackers, a cashier’s check made out to a flight school in Phoenix, four drawings of the cockpit of a 757 jet, a box cutter-type knife, maps of Washington and New York, and a page with notes and phone numbers. [Arizona Daily Star, 9/28/2001; Cox News Service, 10/21/2001; Die Zeit (Hamburg), 10/1/2002] The name and phone number of Osama Awadallah, a friend of Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar in San Diego, is also found on a scrap of paper in the car (see September 12, 2001 and After). [CNN, 2/1/2002] A rental car is found in an airport parking lot in Portland, Maine. Investigators are able to collect fingerprints and hair samples for DNA analysis. [Portland Press Herald, 10/14/2001] A Boston hotel room contains airplane and train schedules. [Sydney Morning Herald, 9/15/2001] FBI agents carry out numerous garbage bags of evidence from a Florida apartment where Saeed Alghamdi lived. [CNN, 9/17/2001] Two days before 9/11, a hotel owner in Deerfield Beach, Florida, finds a box cutter left in a hotel room used by Marwan Alshehhi and two unidentified men. The owner checks the nearby trash and finds a duffel bag containing Boeing 757 manuals, three illustrated martial arts books, an 8-inch stack of East Coast flight maps, a three-ring binder full of handwritten notes, an English-German dictionary, an airplane fuel tester, and a protractor. The FBI seizes all the items when they are notified on September 12 (except the binder of notes, which the owner apparently threw away). [Miami Herald, 9/16/2001; Associated Press, 9/16/2001] In an apartment rented by Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed Alhaznawi, the FBI finds a notebook, videotape, and photocopies of their passports. [Miami Herald, 9/15/2001] In a bar the night before 9/11, after making predictions of a attack on America the next day, the hijackers leave a business card and a copy of the Koran at the bar. The FBI also recovers the credit card receipts from when they paid for their drinks and lap dances. [Associated Press, 9/14/2001] A September 13 security sweep of Boston airport’s parking garage uncovers items left behind by the hijackers: a box cutter, a pamphlet written in Arabic, and a credit card. [Washington Post, 9/16/2001] A few hours after the attacks, suicide notes that some of the hijackers wrote to their parents are found in New York. Credit card receipts showing that some of the hijackers paid for flight training in the US are also found. [Los Angeles Times, 9/13/2001] A FedEx bill is found in a trash can at the Comfort Inn in Portland, Maine, where Atta stayed the night before 9/11. The bill leads to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, allowing investigators to determine much of the funding for 9/11. [Newsweek, 11/11/2001; London Times, 12/1/2001] A bag hijackers Alhazmi and Almihdhar left at a mosque in Laurel, Maryland, is found on September 12. The bag contains flight logs and even receipts from flight schools from San Diego the year before (see September 9, 2001). On 9/11, in a Days Inn hotel room in Newark, New Jersey, investigators find used plane tickets for Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ahmed Alnami. The tickets are all from a Spirit Continental Airlines flight from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to Newark on September 7. Also, flight manuals for Boeing 757 and 767 airplanes are found in English and Arabic. [Investigative Services Division, FBI Headquarters, 4/19/2002]The hijackers past whereabouts can even be tracked by their pizza purchases. An expert points out: “Most people pay cash for pizza. These [hijackers] paid with a credit card. That was an odd thing.” [San Diego Union-Tribune, 9/3/2002] “In the end, they left a curiously obvious trail—from martial arts manuals, maps, a Koran, Internet and credit card fingerprints. Maybe they were sloppy, maybe they did not care, maybe it was a gesture of contempt of a culture they considered weak and corrupt.” [Miami Herald, 9/22/2001] The New Yorker quotes a former high-level intelligence official as saying: “Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the FBI to chase” (see Late September 2001). [New Yorker, 10/8/2001]

A newspaper front page announcing the release of the hijacker photos. [Source: History Channel]The photos of all 19 of the 9/11 hijackers are released by the FBI for the first time. Some photos have been released by the media already; for instance, a photo of Mohammed Atta became very well known a couple of days after the 9/11 attacks. But this is the first time all of the hijackers are seen. The FBI also gives out some details about the hijackers, but these details are scanty. For instance, the only detail mentioned for Ahmed Alhaznawi is, “Possibly lived in Delray Beach, Florida.” Interestingly, one detail mentioned for Khalid Almihdhar is, “May be an assumed name; there are reports he is still alive.” It also is noted that the identities of Waleed Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Mohand Alshehri, Salem Alhazmi, and Saeed Alghamdi are in dispute, and some of the information about them may be confused with other people with similar names. [CNN, 9/27/2001]

On December 14, 2001, it is first reported that 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah was stopped and questioned at Dubai airport (see January 30-31, 2000); a controversy follows on when the US was told about this and what was done about it. Initial Account - The story of Jarrah being detained at Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), first appears in the Chicago Tribune on December 14. This initial report says that Jarrah was stopped because he was on a US watch list. US officials refuse to comment on the matter. (Note that this report and most other early accounts place the incident on January 30, 2001 (see January 31, 2000 and After), but this appears to be incorrect and later reports say it happened exactly one year earlier, on January 30, 2000.) [Associated Press, 12/14/2001]Did the US Tell the UAE to Stop Jarrah? - Jane Corbin reports the same story for the BBC in December 2001 and then repeats it in a book. Once again, US officials refuse to comment on the story. In her account, UAE officials claim Jarrah was stopped based on a tip-off from the US. A UAE source tells Corbin: “It was at the request of the Americans and it was specifically because of Jarrah’s links with Islamic extremists, his contacts with terrorist organizations. That was the extent of what we were told.” [BBC, 12/12/2001; Corbin, 2003] One day after the BBC report, a US official carefully states that the FBI was not aware before 9/11 that another US agency thought Jarrah was linked to any terrorist group. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/13/2001]CNN Revives the Story, Has More Sources - In August 2002, CNN also reports that Jarrah was stopped because he was on a US watch list. It claims this information comes not only from UAE sources, but from other governments in the Middle East and Europe. It also still refers to the incorrect January 31, 2001 date. For the first time, a CIA spokesperson comments on the matter and says the CIA never knew anything about Jarrah before 9/11 and had nothing to do with his questioning in Dubai. [CNN, 8/1/2002]Denials Are Helped by Confusion over Date - Regarding the denials by US authorities, author Terry McDermott point outs: “It is worth noting, however, that when the initial reports of the Jarrah interview [came out,] the Americans publicly denied they had ever been informed of it. As it happened, Corbin had the wrong date for the event, so the American services might have been technically correct in denying any knowledge of it. They later repeated that denial several times when other reports repeated the inaccurate date.” Based on information from his UAE sources, McDermott concludes that the stop occurred and that the US was informed of it at the time. [McDermott, 2005, pp. 294-5]FBI Memo Confirms US Was Notified - In February 2004, the Chicago Tribune claims it discovered a 2002 FBI memo that discusses the incident. The memo clearly states that the incident “was reported to the US government” at the time. This account uses the January 30, 2000 date, and all later accounts do so as well. [Chicago Tribune, 2/24/2004]9/11 Commission Downplays Incident - In July 2004, the 9/11 Commission calls the incident a “minor problem” and relegates it to an endnote in its final report on the 9/11 attacks. It does not mention anything about the US being informed about Jarrah’s brief detention at the time it happened. In this account, Jarrah was not on a US watch list, but he raised suspicion because of an overlay of the Koran in his passport and because he was carrying religious tapes and books. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 496]Vanity Fair Adds New Details - A November 2004 Vanity Fair article adds some new details. In this account, UAE officials were first suspicious of Jarrah because of a page of the Koran stuck in his passport, then they searched his luggage and found it full of jihadist propaganda videos. Six months earlier, the CIA had asked immigration throughout the region to question anyone who might have been to a training camp in Afghanistan, which gave the UAE even more reason to question him. Jarrah was asked about his time in Afghanistan and revealed that he intended to go to flight school in the US, but he was let go. The UAE told the CIA about all this, but German officials say the CIA failed to pass the information on to German intelligence. [Vanity Fair, 11/2004]German and More FBI Documents Also Confirm US Was Involved - McDermott has access to German intelligence files in writing his book published in 2005. He says that German documents show that the UAE did contact the US about Jarrah while he was still being held. But the US had not told the Germans what was discussed about him. Other FBI documents confirming the incident are also obtained by McDermott, but they indicate the questioning was routine. UAE officials insist to McDermott this is absolutely untrue. McDermott suggests that the CIA may not have told the FBI much about the incident. He also says that while UAE officials were holding Jarrah, US officials told them to let Jarrah go because the US would track him (see January 30-31, 2000). [McDermott, 2005, pp. 294]Continued Denials - In September 2005, US officials continue to maintain they were not notified about the stop until after 9/11. [Chicago Tribune, 9/28/2005] Original reporting on the incident will not occur much in the years after then.

German newspaper Der Spiegel reports that Assem Jarrah, a second cousin of 9/11 hijacker Ziad Jarrah, is a spy who has worked for at least three different governments. Assem was born and raised in Lebanon, and moved to Greifswald, East Germany, in 1984. Assem's Alleged Spy Links - According to German intelligence records, one year later he started working for the Stasi, the East German state security service. By 1986, he was also working for the Libyan government, spying on opponents to the Libyan government and “possible CIA front agencies.” He kept East German intelligence informed on what he was doing for Libya, so he was allowed to continue as a double agent. He also had contacts with Abu Nidal’s organization in East Germany and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). After German unification in 1989, he began working for Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), the West German intelligence service, and he continued to work for it at least until the mid-1990s. He also went into business for himself, exporting medical equipment and “allegedly even far more sensitive goods into Arab countries.” One of his German handlers tells Der Speigel: “Jarrah played us all for fools. He… had tons of cash, women—simply everything.” Assem denies that he ever spied for anyone. Connection to Ziad - It is unclear how exactly close Assem was to Ziad Jarrah, but his business card was found in the wreckage of Flight 93. Ziad Jarrah allegedly flew that plane on 9/11 (September 12, 2001 and Shortly After and September 24, 2002). Der Speigel says that Assem “knew his cousin well, as they had both sometimes lived in Greifswald and had celebrated there together often.” Denouncing Ziad - On September 17, 2001, several days after Ziad Jarrah was publicly named as one of the 9/11 hijackers, Assem spoke to German officials and said that he was certain Ziad was part of the 9/11 plot. He claimed that Ziad went to Pakistan or Afghanistan in 1999, and when he came back, he yearned to die a martyr. These comments made Assem the only one in Ziad’s extended family to accuse Ziad of being a martyr, and other family members are suspicious and upset. One relative complains, “Assem sells information for money, all the same whether it is true or not.” [Der Spiegel (Hamburg), 9/16/2002] Curiously, Ziad Jarrah allegedly had two other cousins working as spies, also starting in the 1980s (see 1983-July 2008).

Hani Hanjour (left) and Majed Moqed (right) captured by surveillance video on September 5, 2001. [Source: FBI]An FBI timeline of the 9/11 hijackers’ activities compiled in late 2001 and released this month indicates that considerable video footage of the hijackers has yet to be released. Most of the footage appears to come from surveillance video discovered after the 9/11 attacks. So far, the only known footage made public has been two video stills of Hani Hanjour and Majed Moqed using an ATM machine, one still each of Waleed Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami, several stills of Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari in Portland the night before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001), and a few more stills and footage of several hijackers in airports on the morning of 9/11 (see (Between 5:45 a.m. and 5:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (7:15 a.m.-7:18 a.m.) September 11, 2001). But the FBI’s timeline reveals video footage that has never even been publicly hinted at: Mohamed Atta used an ATM in Palm Beach, Florida, on July 19, 2001. Salem Alhazmi and Ahmed Alghamdi used an ATM in Alexandria, Virginia, on August 2. Hanjour and Mojed used a Kinko’s for half an hour in College Park, Maryland, on August 10. Moqed and Nawaf Alhazmi shopped at an Exxon gas station in Joppa, Maryland, on August 28. Waleed and Wail Alshehri wandered around a Target store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 4. Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari were in a Florida bank lobby on September 4, and the audio of Atta calling Saudi Arabia was even recorded in the process. Fayez Ahmed Banihammad used an ATM on September 7 in Deerfield Beach, Florida. Salem Alhazmi was at the Falls Church DMV on September 7. Low quality surveillance video at the Milner Hotel in Boston showed Marwan Alshehhi and possibly Mohand Alshehri on multiple occasions in the days just before 9/11. Ziad Jarrah and possibly Saeed Alghamdi were videotaped using a Kinko’s for about an hour near Newark on September 10. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 10/2001 ] Additionally, an FBI document will later be made public that indicates there is footage of Saeed Alghamdi entering the Marriott Hotel at the Newark International Airport on September 8, carrying a black roll along bag (he will not have any checked luggage on 9/11). This same document indicates Ziad Jarrah is also seen on videotape shortly after midnight on September 8 at the same Marriott Hotel, making credit card and cash payments for two hotel rooms. He is accompanied by two young men, who most likely are Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami. [Investigative Services Division, FBI Headquarters, 4/19/2002]

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